This story by Lisa Scagliotti first appeared in the Waterbury Roundabout on May 25.

A little over a year after learning that its school district was using restraint and seclusion with students at an alarming rate, the Harwood Unified Union School District School Board has adopted a new policy that officially bans most uses of the practices starting with the 2023-24 school year in the fall.  

The move means that the school district will now have stricter guidelines in place than state policy allows when it comes to employees and contracted staff who need to manage challenging student behaviors.

The issue has been a top priority this school year after the district’s use of the practices was found to be particularly high among schools in Vermont. Former board member and Brookside Primary School special education teacher Brian Dalla Mura brought the matter to the attention of the board and administration in spring 2022. Dalla Mura, who now works in another school district, pointed to statistics showing reported incidents at what was then Thatcher Brook Primary School in Waterbury in the 2017-18 school year. He found that 281 reports were made based on data collected by the federal Office of Civil Rights.

The 2017 figures are the most recent available and they show 11 Vermont schools with more than 50 restraints, only four of which had greater than 100. Fayston Elementary had 105 restraints and Thatcher Brook was the only one with more than 200, Dalla Mura found. The Harwood district’s total across all schools for that year was 451, he said.  

According to the state definitions, physical restraint means using physical force “to prevent an imminent and substantial risk of bodily harm to the student or others.” The Harwood district’s new policy applies to prone and supine restraints. Prone physical restraint means holding a student face down on their stomach using physical force in order to control the student’s movement. Supine restraint means holding a student on their back using physical force for the same purpose. The techniques can be dangerous and even lethal as they impact the child’s ability to breathe.

Seclusion refers to confining a student “alone in a room or area from which the student is prevented or reasonably believes he or she will be prevented from leaving,” according to the state definition. Doctors, psychologists and advocates say the experience can be traumatizing to a child. This does not include a “time-out” situation where a student is not left alone and is under adult supervision, according to the state rules.

The issue came to light as the district’s administration was in transition. Brigid Nease was in the final weeks of her tenure as superintendent and current Superintendent Mike Leichliter was preparing to start in his new role on July 1. Leichliter moved to Vermont from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a superintendent in a system that bans the practices entirely. Vermont is among a minority of states that still allows the tactics to be used with children as young as preschoolers. 

When the current school year opened last August, Harwood staff and contractors who work as support staff for special education were prohibited from using the restraining techniques and from using closed rooms for seclusion.

Administrators on May 24 shared statistics with the school board saying there have been 39 incidences of restraint — none using prone or supine methods — so far this year compared with 129 by this time last school year. Five restraints in the 2021-22 school year were prone restraints, Leichliter added. Also this year, there have been no seclusions compared with 30 last year, officials said.  

School administrators this year have worked on modifying district protocols, they’ve added in new trainings, and a school board committee began drafting a new policy to address the issue. 

A parallel process began in Montpelier this year led by Waterbury state Rep. Theresa Wood, D-Waterbury, with the introduction of a bill that would look to ban prone and supine restraints and seclusion statewide. Although state lawmakers took testimony, the legislation did not advance and remains pending for the legislature to take up in 2024. 

An exception permits some seclusion  

In April, the school board committee completed drafting a policy that calls for the elimination of prone and supine restraints. It also would prohibit seclusion with one exception being “in situations where physical restraint is contraindicated for a particular student.” That exception would only be in place until June 30, 2024, according to the new policy. 

Leichliter and other administrators assured the board that they believed the exception is unlikely to be used and that those circumstances are rare and have not occurred this year or in recent memory. 

That exception led several board members to not vote for the new policy on Wednesday. While the measure received nine votes in favor, Fayston representatives Mike Bishop and Danielle Dukette both voted no; Duxbury member Life LeGeros abstained. The chair typically does not vote; Waterbury board member Marlena Tucker-Fishman was absent.

All three who were not in the “yes” column thanked the policy committee and the administrators for their work on the policy but said they would have liked to see a full ban on seclusion. 

“I don’t think it makes any sense to let it go for another year,” Bishop said.

Dukette agreed, calling the new policy “a substantial step forward” that falls short of the input the board heard from the community on the issue. “The input from the community was quite extensive and very passionate. There are strong feelings against the use of seclusion,” she said. “They are now working effectively without it … I had to vote in support for what the community has spoken so strongly about. That’s my job on this.” 

Leichliter said the point was discussed at length at the policy committee level with administrators. “While the belief is that the district wants no instances of seclusion, the committee felt that if a parent felt that for reasons like personal physical trauma that seclusion was preferred as opposed to restraint, there should be a very specific procedure written that would consider this as an option with medical documentation,” he said. 

The new policy also requires that school staff follow state guidelines in using seclusion. Procedures on how to implement seclusion under this new approach are needed for next school year, he noted. 

LeGeros acknowledged the challenge the committee had in crafting a policy that charts new ground. “It is such a tough issue because there was just a lot of harm done by our district and probably resulting trauma from that. It’s awkward because most of us weren’t necessarily here or at this table during that time,” he said. “But when there’s a process that’s creating harm — especially disproportional to people who are from marginalized communities — you gotta stop the harm. I appreciate the leadership from [Leichliter] for stopping that as far as restraints go. Ultimately, the fact that we allow seclusion to last another year, there’s no secret that I’m disappointed in that.” 

Reached on May 25 after the vote, Wood echoed disappointment that seclusion was not fully banned for another year but she said she was happy to see the district take the first step in moving away from the tactics that are considered harmful and dangerous. “The school district has made great progress in the last year, and I look forward to continuing that progress for the safety of students and staff. I am hopeful that the bill I have introduced banning seclusion and restraint, H.409, will be adopted during the next legislative session,” Wood said. “Although the state has a policy on the use of restraint and seclusion, obviously there is no enforcement and very little data tracking on this issue. The impact on students is undeniable and so this needs to change on a statewide level.”

Dalla Mura, whose experience witnessing restraint and seclusion at Brookside prompted him to research the issue and call for change, said last week that he was happy to see the new policy adopted for the coming school year. “I look forward to the 2024-2025 school year when seclusion will also be banned in HUUSD schools,” he said. “Although the new policy gives me hope that fewer students will be subjected to inappropriate and dangerous restraint practices moving forward, my heart goes out to the students and families that were impacted by past practices.”

Warren board member Jonathan Young reflected on the issue just before the vote was taken, saying he didn’t think the school board and administration could have made such a significant change so quickly just several years ago when he joined the board. “It’s amazing and refreshing and hopeful to me that we’ve come so far so quickly,” he said. “We made good decisions. It makes me proud to be part of this board.”

Board member Ashley Woods of Warren chaired the policy committee. “It was a huge learning experience for me — just the intensity of this issue and how important it is to this community,” Woods said, thanking a number of individuals involved in the process including the superintendent, Director of Student Services Jon Berliner, consultant Dyane Lewis Carrere who is an author and expert on childhood trauma and education, and Dalla Mura. “And all the people who have chimed in and made their feelings known … all the passionate parents who have struggles. We get it, this is a big deal. It’s a big policy change. Thanks to the whole board for riding this wave with us all.”

Board Vice Chair Kelley Hackett of Waterbury thanked the policy committee members, acknowledging the gravity of the subject matter. “I know that it was really, really just heart-wrenching at times … hearing things, and just going through the emotions,” she said. “I really appreciate the time and effort that you took.” 

A request to acknowledge past harm

At the start of last week’s meeting, Dalla Mura was the only individual to comment during the public comment period. He thanked those in the community who advocated for the revised restraint-seclusion policy and then asked the board to not move on without acknowledging the impacts of past actions under the old policy. 

“I hope that we’ll hear how the district plans to repair the harm and trauma that it’s inflicted on its students. I hope to hear a public apology to the victims of inappropriate restraint and seclusion, and I hope to hear the district take accountability,” he said. 

He pointed to inadequate oversight over the years from the state Agency of Education, Board of Education and Mental Health Department. “However, there’s no excuse for the harm that has been inflicted upon hundreds of individual students in the care of HUUSD over the past decade — thousands if you include witnesses,” he said. 

Dalla Mura said he believes restraint and student seclusion were implemented in an intentional way over the years in the school district. “Harwood chose to allow contracted service providers to hold young children face down on the floor. In fact, we paid millions of dollars to outside agencies to do this. Harwood also made a conscious decision to build and use a seclusion room to isolate students,” he noted. “These were conscious decisions, not accidents. Ignorance and good intentions are not an excuse for the harmful impacts.”

Banning prone restraints and seclusion is just the beginning of reversing harmful practices, Dalla Mura suggested. “Once you vote to approve this policy … the job of the board is not done,” he said, calling for the policy subcommittee to continue.

“We know that countless parents and staff were ignored and silenced when they raised concerns about how their students were being restrained and secluded. Please consider hearing testimony from additional experts about how you can prevent this from going undetected in the future. Please consider working on a complaint and investigation process,” he said. “This district desperately needs help with accountability. Don’t blame this on a statewide problem. We shouldn’t need a law to tell us what’s right. Harwood should do what’s right for the sake of doing what’s right.”

Looking ahead

The board as a group did not address the issue of the impacts of the past restraint and seclusion policy. Board members, however, did discuss the possible future role of the committee that drafted the new policy. Committee member Cindy Senning of Duxbury said she found the work the committee did in researching the issue valuable and suggested it would be beneficial for the group to follow through as the policy is implemented. She noted how the seclusion exception ends in a year and that the shift in protocols would impact the relationships the district has with the outside agencies who contract to provide behavioral support staff.

Others agreed. 

The superintendent noted that it’s the board’s prerogative whether to keep a committee active. “It’s up to the board to provide oversight,” he said.

Board Chair Kristen Rodgers of Moretown said that could be something the board discusses at a future meeting. “This could be part of a larger discussion in the fall,” Rodgers said. 

Leichliter and Berliner discussed steps ahead involving staff in all schools as the district looks for new strategies to put into practice with students. They said the shift will involve more training and learning for staff. 

Looking ahead to next year, staff training will continue in trauma-informed practices and social-emotional learning. Each school will have crisis teams, Leichliter noted, and one aim is to have school psychologists in the mix. One challenge is staffing, he added, noting that there currently are approximately six openings for special education staff in the district. A new districtwide position has been created for next year that will be filled by current Moretown Elementary Principal Mandy Couturier. 

Leichliter and Beliner said that they will continue to rely on experts in the field who they have come to know over the past year including Guy Stephens, founder of the nonprofit advocacy organization Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint, who has connected the district with resources. 

Educator and consultant Carrere was well-received on two visits this year, Leichliter said, once last fall for a districtwide training and again in January to work with staff at Brookside. “Teachers have asked for her again,” he said, noting that she will return in June. “We’re continuing that deeper dive with schoolwide strategies to help prevent situations that involve any type of restraint.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Harwood board adopts new policy to ban dangerous student restraints.

This story was originally published by Homegrown Stories.

When storms on the Pine Ridge reservation, home of the Oglala Nation, in South Dakota begin to build, they can be seen from miles away. Above rolling hills, clouds turn into waves and bring the rain. Strong gusts of wind stir up the smell of dirt and sagebrush. Wildlife begins to move along the Badlands long before the weather hits ground and radio broadcasts from KILI radio station warn the community of what’s to come. Evidence of the storm comes slowly at first, setting the scene and then it hits all at once.

In the same way storms build power, slowly and intentionally, there’s something else gaining momentum on Pine Ridge. People that have been too long at the mercy of colonialism and industrialization have begun to gather, organize, and build the foundation for a more prosperous tomorrow. Red Cloud Renewable has been a landmark for sustainability on Pine Ridge, but there was a crucial piece missing in order for the efforts being made in renewable energy to work: housing. Solar panels on poorly insulated, mold-infested homes cannot solve the energy crisis on the reservation.

In 2015, Pine Ridge was hit with several severe storms which prompted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to send 50 trailers to aid people during the flooding. This temporary housing is still being used today.

It is estimated that 89% of people living on the Pine Ridge reservation are in need of housing. According to the American Indian Humanitarian Foundation, at least 60% of the homes on Pine Ridge are without water, electricity, adequate insulation, or sewage systems. Summers can reach a blistering 110 degrees Fahrenheit and higher, while winters can drop to -50 degrees. It is not uncommon for monthly heating bills to reach $500 during the winter months.

With the average per capita salary of $7,000-$9,000 per year, an energy alternative is not just a means of cutting costs, it’s survival.

Solar energy goes a step further than just being a more cost effective form of energy, it also connects the old way of life for the Lakota people to a new way of living. It has the power to give Indigenous people back autonomy by giving people the option to live off-grid.

After spending six years traveling and learning about solar and all of its applications, Henry returned to Pine Ridge to put what he had learned to work. In 2002, he began doing research on thermal solar heating panels, which led him to turning an old freezer door into a solar heater. Using reclaimed materials from a landfill, some metal and an exhaust tube connected to his car battery, Henry built a heater fueled by the sun. Not long after that, he found himself volunteering to do some solar heating installations with a nonprofit. This would lead him to opening Lakota Solar Enterprises, creating jobs for two employees, and himself.

By 2003 they had started manufacturing heating panels. After meeting with the former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewert Udall, Henry secured funding to continue building what he started. With the mission of creating economic opportunities and lessening what Red Cloud calls the tribes’ “moccasin print,” he began working with other tribes.

Red Cloud Renewable became a certified training program and created over 500 jobs across those tribes. This allowed Henry to hire 12 more employees to his own operation as well. These partnerships began to grow and build on each other. “That partnership beginning from 1997, I firmed up and did everything that I could to train myself around solar electric grid-tied battery based systems, standalone systems and then brought a training facility, the first ever of its kind in Indian Country,” explained Henry. Since then, Red Cloud Renewable has added programs in food sovereignty, natural-home builds and reforestation.

Not one of these programs functions fully on its own. Without economic and job security, a community has fewer resources to focus on food sovereignty. Without well-insulated and energy-efficient housing, renewable energy cannot function at its full potential. That housing also needs to be affordable for the community that it intends to serve. Red Cloud Renewable has dabbled in various sustainable housing projects and methods but more recently has partnered with a nonprofit, InOurHands.

Founded by Jason Mackie and Aaron Resnick, InOurHands is working with the Oglala Sioux Tribes and others to address the need for proper housing on the reservation. “There’s a need here for about 20,000 homes,” explained Jason, who has been working with Red Cloud since 2018. “And it’s been common in my five years out here. In fact, every year, somebody that we know, a family member of theirs, has died of exposure, during the night, in their own home, because maybe they thought they’d wait it out, wait another night, and then it got a little bit too cold,” said Jason.

Using a material known as cellular concrete, Red Cloud Renewable and InOurHands have developed a version of a tiny home that ranges in cost from $7,500 to $9,000. The dome-shaped homes are naturally insulated, take only a few days to assemble, are fireproof, and can be heated with a small solar panel. “It’s important to me that we can give something to someone that will sustain them for a really long time and allow them to cultivate some hope and participate in their community and help heal other wounds,” said Aaron.

The first phase of the partnership was focused on training, building warming shelters, and providing one home per each of the nine districts on the reservation. They are also laying the groundwork so that this project can continue to grow beyond addressing housing insecurity. In the future, they hope to train more Lakota people in building the domes, so that others can start their own businesses. InOurHands was granted $700,000 from the Turner Foundation, Kind World, and the Minnie Miracle Foundation to continue this work, and the organizations will continue to build on a charitable basis for families with the greatest need. In the future, these homes will be built by Lakota-owned businesses. Families will be able to purchase the homes with a mortgage that the Lakota Federal Credit Union has agreed to underwrite.

“It’s at that point, we need to be coming together. Our native history with a non-native history has been a terrible time,” said Henry. “But we’re still in that history book. We’re just in a new chapter and we know now what we can do and what we should be doing. And then we can close the book, bring it to a better ending.”

---

Homegrown Stories is a storytelling project from the advocacy group Western Organization of Resource Councils. It celebrates the hardworking people across the West doing things right. The people of these stories are creating community-based food systems, investing in clean energy economies and jobs, supporting just transition work, and fighting for a sustainable future.

The post Renewable Energy Meets Affordable Housing on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

About two weeks after poultry plant worker Jesus “Chuy” Salazar died in a workplace accident, family and friends are mourning the loss of their colleague, father and grandfather.

Salazar, 66, of the Fresno County city of Sanger, died on the morning of May 7 while working at Pitman Family Farms.

That morning, according to a Sanger Police report obtained by The Bee, Salazar was assigned to check pipes around an indoor poultry waste pit — a 14-foot-wide, 18-foot-long and​ 18- to 25-foot-deep rectangular structure containing a mixture of chicken feathers, remains, waste, fat and water.

When a fellow employee noticed Salazar went missing, a Pitman supervisor called the police, concerned that Salazar had fallen into the pit and died, the report said. Police who responded to the scene said they saw in the pit, “a set of boots with the toes pointed upwards.”

The Fresno County Coroner’s Office said in an email statement to The Bee that Salazar’s cause of death was drowning.

Pitman Farms — the family-owned farm and poultry processing company behind “Mary’s Chicken,” a popular line of organic and free-range chickens — is one of the largest employers in Fresno County, according to state employment data. Workers at the Sanger-based processing plant cut, grind and package chickens, as well as other poultry products.

Pitman Farms did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, Cal/OSHA, is investigating the workplace fatality. The federal agency says there are many “serious safety and health hazards” in the poultry processing industry, due to the common use of dangerous equipment and hazardous chemicals, and the risk of chronic injuries.

Salazar’s family shared a statement with The Bee, authored by his son, Richard Castillo, his daughter-in-law, Lina Castillo, his daughter, Clarissa Reyes, and his grandchildren Paris, Roman and Landon.

“Losing a loved one is never easy, especially someone as remarkable as Jesus,” the family said in the statement. “He was not only a great father, but a great human being.”

‘A lot of people’ loved him at Pitman Farms

Salazar was originally from the town of Jiquilpan, Michoacán, México and eventually moved to the United States to make a living.

His children remember him as a “very hard worker.”

Prior to working at Pitman Farms, where his family estimates he worked for around two years, he worked in the hospitality industry in the city of San Jose, helping with hotel banquets.

At Pitman Farms, Salazar, affectionately known as “Don Chuy,” was the kind of coworker that looked out for others.

In the mornings when clocking in, Salazar would greet his colleagues with a spirited, “good morning! How did we wake up today?” He would offer you a soda or water from his lunch box, coworkers recalled, or offer to buy you a snack if he thought you looked famished.

He cracked jokes with his coworkers and offered words of encouragement during the workday, which workers said could sometimes last between 10 and 14 hours.

He was a good, respectful man, fellow Pitman Farms employee Karina Torres said in an interview. “Bien amiguero, bien campechano,” she said. “Very friendly, very cheerful.”

And he loved his family, Torres said. “We’d be there working and he’d talk about his children and his grandchildren,” she said. “And when he talked about them, his beautiful eyes would light up.”

Now, ‘Don Chuy’ is on everyone’s minds at work, Torres said, and as soon as a group of four or five people are together, “we start to cry.”

Some of his colleagues, family and friends gathered last Saturday in Sanger for a small memorial in his name.

“Muchas personas lo queríamos allí,” said another Pitman Farms worker who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “A lot of us there loved him.”

Salazar’s family to hold funeral service later this month

Salazar’s family remembers him as someone who had an “infectious” love for life, and love for those around him.

One way he expressed this passion was through music and dance. He especially loved mariachi music. One song family members say he sang well was “Volver, Volver,” a Mexican ranchero song made popular by the late Vicente Fernandez.

“Everyone always asked him to sing and he did it so well,” said his daughter-in-law Lina Castillo.

The Castillo family said they’ll find comfort remembering “the sound of his voice as he sang and danced, the warmth of his embrace, and the joy he brought to those around him.”

His family will hold private funeral services for Salazar later this month.

The post Worker who drowned at Fresno-area poultry plant remembered as ‘a great human being’ appeared first on Fresnoland.

Twenty-one people died at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022. The mass shooting and delayed police response spurred calls for stricter gun laws.

Reading Time: 7 minutes

As early as kindergarten, Robin Pierre started to notice that her daughter, Hattie, was falling behind. She wasn’t able to read the books they were sending home, despite being in a charter school known for its focus on literacy. 

Hattie started working with a reading interventionist during kindergarten and throughout first grade. But then her behavior started to escalate. She’d hide under desks and run out of the classroom. She was moved to another charter school for second grade, one focused on play-based learning and field trips in hopes that environment would better suit her.

All this time, Hattie’s trouble reading persisted. Pierre asked to have her evaluated for special education. 

Hattie was assessed; but when Pierre asked questions about dyslexia, she said the school told her they don’t acknowledge dyslexia without a diagnosis, and that could only come from brain imaging. 

“It was a fight at first,” Pierre said.

Dyslexia looks different for each person who has it. It’s a neurobiological learning disability that can make it difficult for people to decode words and read fluently. People with dyslexia may struggle with spelling and reading comprehension as a result of their challenge matching letters to their corresponding sounds. 

The International Dyslexia Association estimates that as many as one in five people could have symptoms of dyslexia, ranging in severity.

Often, people assume that dyslexia is just mixing up letters such as “b” and “d.” It can be that for some people — Pierre said Hattie experienced that — but it’s not the only symptom. For example, people with dyslexia might struggle with slow, choppy reading, memorization or even constantly confuse left and right. It ranges on a spectrum from mild to severe.

For Hattie, reading was “labor-intensive.” She’d often read a sentence three times before she’d actually comprehend what it said. The first few reads were spent trying to identify the sounds for each letter and then trying to put them all together more smoothly, so she could get to the point of comprehension.

Currently, Wisconsin does not require students to be screened specifically for dyslexia, but the state passed legislation three years ago to create an informational guidebook on dyslexia and related conditions to be shared on the state Department of Public Instruction and all school distric websites.

In the years since the guidebook was created, Wisconsin and the rest of the country has turned up the volume on a discussion about literacy after standardized test scores have shown significant declines in language arts during the pandemic. 

But those conversations usually don’t include students with dyslexia. Families are often left on their own to get their children tested, diagnosed and supported through outside tutoring. And local tutoring agencies are feeling the burden of an increased need to support these students, who are now often even further behind because of the pandemic.  

“It’s something the public school should have done; they should have been able to teach her how to read,” Pierre said.

What Wisconsin school districts do to support students with dyslexia

By state law, schools are required to screen students in 4K through second grade annually for “literacy fundamentals.” This includes letter sound knowledge and something called phonemic awareness — the ability to identify individual sounds within a word — which are generally two areas of difficulty for students with dyslexia. 

DPI told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin these requirements are “generally agreed upon to be components of screening for dyslexia.” If a screening indicates they needs more testing, there are additional screening options listed in the state’s guidebook that parents and teachers can consider.

In 2021, Republican lawmakers proposed tripling the number of literacy tests for young students to boost low proficiency rates, but Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill, saying it lacked evidence and funding. 

The state may mandate early screening, but district by district, the overall approach to literacy can look different. 

The Menasha Joint School District is focused on being “diagnostic” with students, said Renae Braun, a literacy coach.

It does this by screening students in kindergarten through eighth grade three times a year. Those screenings look at students’ comprehension, fluency and knowledge of phonics. Through those, the district identifies a student’s strengths and areas of concern. 

For students behind grade level or who show other challenges on those screenings, the district creates an individual plan — called a Response to Intervention plan — to help them catch up. It focuses on strengthening areas of concern.

There isn’t one method that works for teaching literacy to all students. But Braun said students with dyslexia need explicit teaching and multiple modalities — a combination of visual, auditory and tactile.

“We do dipstick check-ins every two weeks or every week to make sure the plan is accelerating or growing our students,” she said. 

Both Menasha and Kimberly school districts see teacher expertise as vital to teaching students who struggle with literacy, whether it’s diagnosed dyslexia or other challenges.

The Kimberly Area School District added a phonological interventionist to its staff in August 2022. The role was designed to be “an in-house expert on decoding and fluency,” according to Holly Prast, assistant superintendent. 

This interventionist is trained in a specific dyslexia intervention, among other reading interventions, and works with students directly, Prast said. They also collaborate with teachers to provide new strategies to support students who are struggling.

Many districts have hired reading interventionists to support students through pandemic-induced learning loss, but Prast said Kimberly decided to add a phonological interventionist independently of that.

Carrie Willer, director of elementary education for the Appleton Area School District, echoed the need for a variety of teaching methods to support students. The number of students in any given classroom is the number of different learning styles teachers need to work with, she explained. 

“You need a full bag of tricks and a full bag of tools to meet each of those students,” she said. 

Appleton has interventionists, teachers trained in a one-on-one reading recovery program and other methods of support, including small group work and collaboration with parents.

Still, fewer than half of Appleton students are reading at or above grade level. 

A recent audit of the district’s English language arts curriculum showed a need for more emphasis on phonics and letter sound awareness — strategies that would better support students with dyslexia in the classroom. 

Many families with students with dyslexia have to turn to outside tutoring

When Hattie eventually qualified for special education, the district focused only on her ADHD diagnosis. So, not only did Pierre pay out of pocket for neurological exams, but she had to fight to get the district to even recognize the dyslexia diagnosis in her individual education plan.

It was around then that Pierre found Dyslexia Reading Connection, a nonprofit tutoring organization based in Appleton. That was four years ago, and Hattie has gone twice a week ever since — even through the summers. 

DRC has been around for almost 20 years, but there’s been increased demand since the pandemic, said Kimberly Stevens, executive director. Earlier this year, there were 50 students on the waitlist — five times as many as the organization had pre-COVID. And Stevens said new students are coming in for consultations every week.

Today, Hattie is caught up to grade level and has even become “quite an avid reader,” Pierre said. She credits that success more to the tutoring she paid for from DRC than what the public schools provided.

“I didn’t think this day would come,” she said.

When asked how often Dyslexia Reading Connection is screening students for dyslexia, Stevens said, “constantly.” It tries to keep screenings to about five students a week since the Appleton-based nonprofit is already tutoring more than 110 students online and in person. 

But it’s not just an increase in the number of students. Stevens said students are coming in further and further behind. Before the pandemic, students would come to DRC a year and nine months behind, on average. Now, it’s not uncommon for students to be three or even four years behind where they should be. 

“Parents are desperate to get their kids the right interventions,” Stevens told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

While DRC can’t offer a medical diagnosis, the screening it offers is about an hour long and can usually tell with a high degree of certainty whether the student has dyslexia, Stevens said. After the screening results are explained to the parents, it’s up to them whether they want to move forward with tutoring. It’s first come, first served, since there’s a waitlist, but a family’s scheduling availability may be considered.

On average, students spend four years with DRC working through 10 levels of tutoring that will bring them up to a 10th-grade reading level.

The tutoring starts by breaking language into its smallest parts: individual vowels and consonants. As the levels progress, students move on to syllables, prefixes and suffixes, vowel placement in a word and even influences from foreign languages such as Latin and Greek root words. 

Karrie Brass, a tutor at DRC, said her husband, who has dyslexia, uses a car engine analogy to explain it: The brains of students without dyslexia works like driving an automatic transmission when learning to read, spell and write. They don’t need to work through every step of processing language. Most of it happens under the hood without conscious thought. 

But for students with dyslexia, their brains are more like driving a car with a manual transmission. They need to shift gears, understand the specifics of how letters make sounds and work through each step of the process; otherwise, it won’t be a smooth ride.

Life after high school for students with dyslexia

Hattie is still making her way through middle school, but Pierre said Hattie has dreams of going to college one day.

And she’s not alone.

Take, for example, Meghan Molthen.

A freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Molthen was diagnosed with dyslexia the summer before sixth grade. She struggled to spell simple words and saw her classmates read at much higher levels than her, but she didn’t understand why until she got her diagnosis. 

Figuring out that she had dyslexia helped give shape to the reason why she was struggling, but it didn’t fix everything. Molthen went to school in Fort Atkinson before moving to Pulaski her sophomore year, so she experienced two districts and their approaches to supporting her dyslexia. 

Although a diagnosis made accessing certain supports simpler, Molthen said there were still challenges because the school systems didn’t understand “how to fully accommodate students with learning disabilities.”

When she toured UW-Oshkosh in summer 2021, she asked the admissions office about accommodations for students with learning disabilities. They told her about a program called Project Success. 

Project Success is a remedial program for students with dyslexia and other language-based learning disabilities at the school. It starts with a six-week summer program focused on phonics and teaching students the relationship between letters and sounds. 

Director Jayme Reichenberger said the program has a reading and writing component, but it also supports students in other ways through the transition from high school to college. By completing the summer program, students can earn up to six credits, which can be a helpful GPA cushion for those early, stressful semesters of college. 

Students also learn about what laws protect their accommodations and what services are available to them. Reichenberger said many students come in not really understanding their diagnosis. They might have attended meetings during their K-12 education, but a lot of them didn’t put a name to their disability. 

It’s not uncommon for Reichenberger to hear students say that their dyslexia was essentially ignored, so she said they try hard to actually say the word “dyslexia.” There are even campus events where students will write messages like “Say dyslexia” on the sidewalk. 

“When a disability is hidden, it’s easy to stereotype and have misconceptions about it,” Reichenberger said.

For Molthen, the program gave her agency over her learning disability. She had a hard time even talking about her dyslexia before, but Project Success taught her how to see it as a benefit. 

“I’m so thankful I have it,” she said of her dyslexia. “It pushes me to be a better person.”

One in 5 could have dyslexia, but Wisconsin students, parents feel school support falls short is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Austin Wall was attending an environmental law conference at the University of Tennessee not long ago when, during a discussion of natural gas pipeline projects, a map appeared on the screen and gave him a surprise.

“I’m like, hold up, that Google Maps looks really familiar to me,” the 25-year-old law student said. “I could find my family’s farm on that map.”

Wall’s family lives in rural Dickson County, and its ranch lies within a 10-mile “blast zone” of a pipeline planned for north-central Tennessee. That got his attention. A pipeline exploded in that area in 1992, scorching more than five acres of forest, and a similar disaster could decimate the family’s livelihood raising cattle. But what really dismayed him is why the Tennessee Valley Authority wants to build the project: It plans to replace two coal-fired power plants with natural gas facilities.

The TVA is the nation’s largest public power provider, serving a wide swath of seven southern states, including most of Tennessee. Its fleet of 29 dams, 14 small “solar energy sites,” and 25 power plants generates the electricity that it sells to 153 regional utilities. The agency once boasted 14 coal-fired power plants, including one that was for much of the 1960s the world’s largest. Today just five remain, and the agency wants to replace two in Tennessee, one in Cumberland and the other in Kingston, with gas-powered plants. Doing so all but commits its customers to fossil fuels for the next 25 to 30 years, obliterating the utility’s chance of reaching any national or international, or even its own, climate goals.

Despite that, the TVA argues that building the capacity for solar and wind energy takes too much money and time to allocate all at once. Its officials insist that methane burns cleaner than coal, and they echo a common argument in claiming that it provides a tidy bridge between coal and truly renewable energy. Some, including the Environmental Protection Agency, oppose the plan for climate reasons, arguing that, in addition to carbon dioxide, the plant will emit methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas. Others worry about how the pipelines needed to serve the new operations will impact their communities.

Wall joined other opponents of the plan who gathered earlier this month in a cavernous middle school gym in Norris, Tennessee, for a TVA board meeting. Together, they told the agency exactly what they thought of the plan. Wall sees the plant slated for Cumberland as part of a history of exploitation throughout the rural South.

“It’s rich people coming in and stealing our stuff and then leaving,” he said. “And I think that when you look into it, it’s a cycle that TVA has the opportunity to stop or to break.”

The TVA bills itself as a proponent of sustainability, and the meeting was thick with branding proclaiming that. A video clip playing on a screen near the podium celebrated a utopian vision of the agency’s past and present: happy workers, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, and glittering solar fields. “We made clean energy long before anyone asked us to,” the narrator intoned over the sound of an acoustic guitar.

Yet just 3 percent of the TVA’s energy portfolio comes from wind and solar alone. If you count hydropower and nuclear as clean energy sources, as the TVA does, that number bumps up to about 50 percent. Gas supplies another 22 percent. “I want the word sustainability to be synonymous with TVA,” Lyash said during the meeting.

It’s hard to square that position with the agency’s plans for the Cumberland and Kingston power plants. Each is a juggernaut. Cumberland, the largest remaining coal plant in the TVA’s fleet, generates enough power for 1.1 million homes each year, according to the agency, and Kingston, about 700,000. These two plants burned coal for decades, exposing the surrounding low-income, rural communities to carbon, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants. In Kingston, mismanagement of the plant’s massive coal ash landfill resulted in a notorious billion-gallon spill in 2008. Each is reaching the end of its service lifespan, and, combined with federal pressure to reduce emissions, no longer make economic sense to repair and run. Though bulldozing the units remains an option, the TVA believes a conversion to methane may give these plants a new life and benefit the climate.

“Replacing retired coal units with natural gas will reduce carbon emissions from coal chains by nearly 6 percent and accelerate the retirement of that coal,” Lyash said of the plan.

Of course, replacing those plants with renewables would reduce carbon emissions even further. The TVA is taking a step in that direction by replacing a coal plant in Paradise, Kentucky, with an operation that will combine solar and natural gas.

The agency considered a solar buildout for the Cumberland coal plant, but ruled it out on the grounds that it would require too much time and money. It also weighed distributed solar development as an alternative for the Kingston plant, but drafts of the plan indicate gas remains the preferred alternative there, too. This comes after years of slashing solar incentives and disinvesting in energy efficiency programs.

The favoritism mirrors a regional trend as Tennessee doubles down on natural gas. State lawmakers are pushing a bill that reclassifies it as clean energy. This follows years of other fossil fuel-friendly legislation, like a bill that explicitly blocks some local governments in the state’s majority-Democratic urban areas from fully decarbonizing. As usual, the argument follows these lines: You can’t see the sun for twelve hours a day, but gas plants can run anytime you need them.

The Biden Administration disapproves of the TVA’s plan for Cumberland and Kingston, noting that the only way it would achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 would be to institute expensive carbon capture technology, which the TVA did not factor into its math, or bring the plants offline early, leaving them a stranded asset. However, the EPA  did not challenge the decision.

Some commenters thanked the TVA for keeping the lights on, but others challenged the gas buildout, saying the agency reached a crossroads, took a look each way, then picked the wrong direction. Some called on it to immediately change course and cancel its plans.

“If you don’t move now, this will not happen,” one commenter told the board. “We are taxpayers who contribute to every TVA salary.”

That isn’t actually true, although it’s easy to see why people might think it is. Tax dollars do not support the TVA, though they once did, at its outset under the New Deal. Today the agency is a corporation run by the United States government, with leadership recommended by the President of the United States, and confirmed by the Senate, to serve five-year terms. Its board meetings are open, and decisions subject to public comment. But lately, some believe its decision-making has been less than democratic, and that TVA no longer feels beholden to those it serves.

“It’s a corporation clothed with the power of government,” said Amanda Garcia, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. The Center, with other regional organizations like Appalachian Voices and the Tennessee Sierra Club chapter, has thrown its energy into pushing TVA away from methane. Part of the difficulty, she said, is the TVA is not regulated by the state Public Service Commission – it’s essentially an unregulated monopoly. That exempts it from the sort of oversight experienced by, say, Dominion Energy, which saw the South Carolina Public Service Commission reject its long-term plan in 2020, citing a need for lower-carbon options in its energy mix. Furthermore, utilities under TVA jurisdiction have negotiated what are called “never-ending contracts,” or perpetual power supply agreements that are difficult to exit. That lack of accountability and flexibility appears to be keeping the TVA on the fossil fuel train, Garcia said.

“I think there’s a fair amount of, just, institutional inertia going into planning for the future,” she said. “And a desire to continue to be able to control the electric system in a way that is inconsistent with really where we need to be moving from a climate perspective.”

Garcia and other climate activists believe Lyash, whom the board named CEO in 2019, holds outsized power over decision making. President Trump, who fired two of the board’s nine members over their pay and other issues, threatened to fire him for the same reasons. He relented, and the remaining board members voted in 2022 to hand Lyash the final call on a wide range of matters, including the last word on the gas plant buildout. After President Biden appointed four board members, the panel in May took back that authority, but ditching coal for gas in Cumberland and Kingston remains the official position. The TVA has refused to make board members available for comment, leaving that task to Lyash. TVA did not respond to an additional request for comment by the time of publication.

In an interview, Lyash told Grist that he wants the plants to eventually serve as backup energy sources, in the form of blackout-preventing “peaker plants,” that would provide power during high demand as the agency brings more renewables online. “If you wait for the perfect, you’ll be waiting a long time,” he said.

He also cited his oft-repeated mistrust in the reliability of wind and solar in defending the plan.

“If we could build 100 percent solar and operate a reliable, affordable system, we would have no reason not to. But we can’t. But that isn’t to say that doesn’t diminish the role of a solar bill on the portfolio,” he said, referring to the proportion of gas and solar in the energy mix. “The gas bill, you can’t take it in isolation. You have to think of it as part of the overall system.”

Tennessee’s larger cities, though, don’t think they have the time to wait on TVA’s creeping energy transition. Memphis Light, Gas and Power recently backed out of its “never-ending” 20-year contract with TVA, citing a desire to integrate more renewables and lower residents’ utility bills. Nashville Mayor John Cooper personally urged the TVA to scrap its Cumberland gas plant idea and start over.

“Even if TVA decides to retire the gas plants early and switch to renewables, they will pass the cost of the plant onto Nashville customers, consolidating the cost of a decades-long investment into customer electricity bills over just a few years,” Cooper wrote in a public comment addressed to the TVA. “Leaving Nashvillians on the hook for further pollution is unacceptable, whether the plants operate for years or are retired quickly.”

Climate activists and community leaders hope the conversions to gas are not a done deal. The Kingston plan was only just offered for public comment, and a lot can change before it is finalized in the spring of 2023. The Cumberland gas plan was wrapped up in January, but environmental advocates hope increased agitation over the planned pipeline could delay or even kill it, since that project requires an EPA-approved plan. A few bureaucratic steps remain before the future of the two power plants is set, and the public can still weigh in on it.

Austin Wall doesn’t want a gas plant, but also doesn’t want to see the TVA leave Cumberland. On the contrary. The plant provided 265 well-paying union jobs. But the 35 permanent positions expected from the gas buildout feels like a pittance in comparison, not to mention the public health hazards it will bring. Wall would rather see the agency support his community with renewed investment in energy efficiency and home upgrades, along with the construction of solar and wind infrastructure. That, he says, both help rural ratepayers and provide more opportunity for carpenters, electricians, and others in skilled trades.

A recent report by nonprofit organization Appalachian Voices suggested that as many as 739 direct, long-term jobs could be created in Cumberland and the surrounding area with investments in decarbonization, particularly in the energy efficiency sector.

“We’ve given up a lot of our land and a lot of our health and well being for this coal plant,” Wall said. “And we’d like to see a little bit of it in return.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Replace fossil fuels — with more fossil fuels? That’s one major utility’s plan. on May 19, 2023.

The federal Farm Bill is must-pass legislation that Congress debates every five years. It includes billions of dollars in farm subsidies and pays for food assistance programs.

WOODSTOCK — The town’s economic development commission has expanded its housing incentives, allowing landlords in bordering towns to receive funding to house Woodstock workers in newly created, unused, or formerly short-term rentals. 

Woodstock’s Selectboard approved the amended program Tuesday night. 

The town’s economic development commission — funded by Woodstock’s 1% option tax — first created its rental incentive program last year. The program paid landlords up to $10,000 to build or refurbish rental units to make them livable, and offered similar funds to convert short-term rentals to long-term rentals. 

To obtain the grant, the landlord needed to rent the space for three years to someone working in Woodstock or surrounding towns. Owners could charge no more than $1,000 a month for a studio, $1,500 for a one-bedroom or $2,500 for a multi-bedroom unit, not including utilities.

Like other towns across the state, Woodstock has a dearth of affordable rentals. In turn, some local businesses have struggled to find workers. 

“The market isn’t providing these houses, so we have to provide some subsidies,” said Jill Davies, a member of the economic development commission’s housing working group. 

Now, the program is expanding to cover units in Bridgewater, Pomfret, Reading and Hartland, so long as the units are rented to someone working an average of at least 25 hours per week in Woodstock. 

“You just have to try everything and see what works,” Davies said.

Davies said the rental program in Woodstock, an upscale tourist destination, was inspired by a similar initiative led by the Big Sky Community Housing Trust in the resort town of Big Sky, Montana. 

The commission also solidified other, minor policy changes to the program. Rather than distributing funds on a per-bedroom basis, the economic development commission will pay landlords according to how many qualified workers they rent to. 

Landlords would receive $2,500 if they sign a qualified tenant to a one-year lease, and $6,000 if they sign a tenant to a two-year lease. A maximum award of $10,000 is available to landlords who sign four or more tenants to two-year leases. 

Additional funds are available if landlords rent to a non-qualified tenant, so long as they also rent to a qualified tenant. 

Previously, landlords needed to sign one-year leases at a minimum with qualified tenants. Now, landlords can receive grant money for six-month leases in order to accommodate seasonal workers. 

Thus far, Woodstock’s rental incentive program has supported or is planning to support 10 units, according to Trena Tolliver, housing advisor for the economic development commission. Funds will support or have already supported the creation of four accessory dwelling units, a new three-bedroom unit, and a three-bedroom apartment being rented to Woodstock workers, she said. 

Tolliver called the program’s changes “enhancements,” adding that current funding would allow for two or three more units. 

“If we get close to hitting the targets, we’ll go back to the (commission) to ask for more funding,” she said. 

Both Tolliver and Davies acknowledged that the 10 units supported thus far are far from enough. Still, they represent a start. 

“We just hope to keep the momentum going,” Tolliver said. “Anything we’ve created or used to get this off the ground, we welcome other people to utilize it, too.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Woodstock will pay landlords in nearby towns to house its workers.